


Disjointed

by misbehavingvigilante



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, or sorta happy at least?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-29 22:53:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8508688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbehavingvigilante/pseuds/misbehavingvigilante
Summary: There’s the thought of being too old for this.
Then again, that’s an interesting thought in and of itself. For what exactly is he too old for when death does not come despite what is done to his body? Reaper laughs, a deep guttural sign that sounds less like a man, and much more like something else.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chiwibel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiwibel/gifts).
  * Inspired by [to reap into the abyss](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8071153) by [Chiwibel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiwibel/pseuds/Chiwibel). 



> lmao I swear I'm a fluff writer and yet
> 
> Let me know if I need to add anymore tags by the way? ;p I'm unsure how to tag this since this isn't my usual ballpark.
> 
> Anyways, this is a gift fic for [Chiwibel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiwibel/pseuds/Chiwibel) because not only was it inspired by her work, but she also helped translate a lot of Spanish in some of my other works so I thought she deserved a nice gift. :D

There’s the thought of being too old for this.

Then again, that’s an interesting thought in and of itself. For what exactly is he too old for when death does not come despite what is done to his body? Reaper laughs, a deep guttural sign that sounds less like a man, and much more like something else.

Something other, something different than the living, but something that still walks among the living.

What is he exactly? The answer changes day to day, is he the monster that the world claims he is because of the deaths he’s caused? Or is he the victim, the pawn, the outcome of someone’s game where he was sacrificed but they – who they are – didn’t quite get rid of him.

Somehow, someway.

Maybe it doesn’t really matter, if he doesn’t die, does it even really matter what he does? Whose side he’s even on? Talon doesn’t have his loyalty, though he is clearly a favorite of theirs. Reaper isn’t sure what Talon is to him. Something old but not quite something familiar.

In the same breath, Overwatch is something familiar but not something old, with how it refuses to go out like a dying flame stubbornly refusing to go out despite forces conspiring against it.

Ah, conspiracy.  There’s something familiar about that too, not that Reaper can really put his finger on it. Then again, sometimes he can’t put his finger on anything, this body of his is much more smoke than flesh some days leaving him a miasma of wrath than something human.

Was he human? Reaper wonders about that sometimes, there are memories, but they are faint. It is much more like impressions than anything. Like trying to make sense of the brush strokes of an abstract painting, something open to interpretation.

Again, it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing to be done right now, but to wait. Reaper’s spine is reforming and realigning itself after a rather severe break. He gets thrown around too much these days, but again he’ll heal. Unlike the broken bodies all around him that also had the bad idea to try and pump him full of bullets, either they don’t hit him because he turns his body to smoke, or they do hit him, but they don’t slow him down, all they do is make him angry.

There’s a flicker of something in the distance, waiting and watching. Reaper feels the soul rather than sees the target. He doesn’t want to turn his head at the moment, he is comfortable propped up where he is, and there’s no point.

No one could kill him even if he wanted them to.

The presence edges closer carefully and with precision that speaks of training. Not like some opponents he come across that are far too green in the field. Like they had never had a day of training in their life, like how they think their youth or ideal will keep them from the embrace of death.

Reaper feels like putting on a show. “Have you come to see if you can kill the Reaper?” He taunts his opponent.

“You’re theatrical as always.”

Reaper tilts his head, a movement akin to an owl if he really wanted to, he could probably twist it as far as those birds do. His neck has been snapped before, and nothing happened. But right now, he doesn’t feel like resorting to such a thing.

His opponent is the Solider. Or rather Solider 76.

A stupid name, in Reaper’s own opinion. What kind of name was that anyways? It spoke nothing to the soldier’s ferocity which he had seen with his own eyes before. There was something about him.

Something both alluring and repulsive. Such a man shouldn’t give him such ambivalent feelings.

But why? Reaper didn’t have an answer, he just knew it should be simpler when it came to this man in particular.

“You made quite a mess.”

Reaper rolled his eyes. “I don’t need to hear your judgement.”

“I was going to say good job. Those lot definitely deserved it. Would have done it myself, but you went ahead and did it for me. I should be thanking you for that.”

It seems… or rather it feels odd to hear that sort of nonchalance about death from this person. Yes, they hadn’t been good people, though many of the targets Talon told him to hit were just that. But not these bunch, it didn’t matter their crimes just that that drew breathe no more.

A darkness tainting a light of sorts. No, the sun, this man was the sun. Something bright, and something wonderful once but not so much any longer. But all suns burn out eventually, and with them great death follows.

Great death, had that involved him? Reaper thinks, the man speaks of him with familiarity that is greater than the run ins they have had so far.

How he wants, how he needs answers make no difference in the end. They will not come to him, just another thing that doesn’t come to him despite his sacrifices.

Lost in the stream of thoughts, his body feels better. There is a biotic field filling the area around him with light, and how Reaper wants to recoil from it. He wants destroy the device just to spite the other but at the same time, it is a nice thought.

Few people seem to care about what actually happens to him. Talon doesn’t, he is their weapon, and he lets them use him for the right price.

Overwatch mostly seems him as a monster, something to shoot on sight, and end without once asking why? Why is he the way he is, and why is he attacking them? Something about how quick they are to accept him at face value makes him sad. Not angry, as he would have thought.

“Why are you doing this?” Reaper asks, because his voice still works and as tempted as he is to sink his claws into the other’s neck and let the blood follow, and feel his soul depart, he does not. He stays his hand.

“Because I care about what happens to you.”

There’s a flash of something, a face, his own face, a different time. Something much more peaceful than what they have now. There’s a name on his lips that has been on them several times before. “Jack.”

“Let me take care of you, Gabriel.”

Gabriel? The name seems foreign, it doesn’t seem like it belongs to him at all, but Reaper accepts it because he is tired. Perhaps he is Gabriel, or perhaps he is not any longer, if he ever was. But a reprieve of decay and recovery is not something he will say no to.

“Alright.” He reluctantly voices his opinion as he stands. His body is now healed, back to the usual state of existing between something solid and flesh and something smoke and other. “There’s nothing that will stop me from killing you if you annoy me.”

“Fair enough. I’d deserve it.”

Something about this man – Jack – is broken too. That makes him feel better that he isn’t the only one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I was. Didn’t seem to do much good. Pretty sure they’d be better off without me.”
> 
> “But I’m supposed to be better off with you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is short, believe me I wanted to write more but this election has just taken it out of me. 
> 
> There will probably be more of this, probably. 
> 
> Regardless, enjoy.

“What do you remember?” Jack asks him, because of course he does. The solider had already pieced together that his mind much like his body is not whole.

Reaper as he can’t quite find in within his fractured self to think of himself as Gabriel quite yet knows the answer to that, even if it’s not quite the answer he gives Jack. “That I don’t want to have this conversation.”

“Then do you want to stay? Because if we’re going to go on the run from talon, we need to start soon.”

There’s a tempting thought to be freed from the strings that Talon has on him. Reaper may have not had his memories, but his mind was still sharp, sharper than they thought of him. He plays up the bloodthirsty angle around them, makes them think he is one mind, one thought, when he is anything but that simple.

But still, with Talon comes Overwatch. It has always been that way, but before it was too late.

Their claws had sunk into the future of humanity and ripped it away. Reaper relates, he knows what it is likes to be torn apart until there is nothing left. Maybe torn isn’t the right word for it. Blasted, perhaps?

“Gabriel.”

There’s that name again. Reaper glances over to Jack, and speaks his mind. “What about Overwatch? Weren’t you a part of that?”

Something about running to Overwatch leaves a bad taste in Reaper’s mouth. Or maybe that’s not quite right, his mouth nearly always tastes of ashes these days. A bitter and burnt reminder of how useless his voice had been before.

“I was. Didn’t seem to do much good. Pretty sure they’d be better off without me.”

“But I’m supposed to be better off with you?”

“Maybe you’re not, but at least you wouldn’t be alone, and that’s something isn’t it?”

There’s something poetic about them both surviving not that Reaper knows why that is just yet. Still, it feels very much them against the world.

That isn’t so unfamiliar, there’s some sort of lost camaraderie between them.  

Reaper wonders what killed it, did he kill it?

Again, it matters not, there’s a decision to make here because time is on the essence. Well, maybe not as much for Reaper as Jack. Reaper isn’t sure if he can ages anymore though he feels ancient and primordial.

But Jack cannot say the same, or maybe he can, there’s something in his blood – their blood – that makes them different. Is that enough to have Jack at his side for eternity? Or will he have to do some cruel, dark thing to keep him there?

The wave of possessiveness comes from nowhere and disappears just as fast. Reaper doesn’t want to be around Jack that long, shared past or not, but for now he is a means to an end.

To what end, that’s less certain.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know I don’t die.” Reaper reminds.
> 
> “You did die once. It could happen again.”
> 
> “Unlikely, but if you want to go on rampage again for me, I wouldn’t mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is taking a strange turn, nonetheless I'm enjoying it. 
> 
> I hope y'all are too. I still don't know how to tag this piece properly so let me know if I need to add something.

Reaper is not sure why he does it, it’s only been a matter of days since he said yes to Jack’s insane offer.

Talon is relentless, unforgiving, and they never like a prize go without a fight. Something that doesn’t die would of course be a prize to be beloved for its usefulness if nothing else.  

But there he goes, throwing his body over Jack’s like it’s the most natural thing in the world to protect him from a barrage of bullets. Not exactly human as he appears or not, it’s not something Reaper was confident enough in him taking and surviving.

And despite the fact, he still feels like killing Jack at times, or letting him die, when the chance comes, he doesn’t allow it to happen.

It slows him down for a moment of course, because yes, bullets still hurt. It always hurts, there’s never been a moment since Reaper became this where he has not been aware of the pain. Always there, but easy to ignore like ambiance until it roars to something like electronic music, pulsing and distorting like a computer making an error noise.

Ah… Reaper knows this feeling, it’s when the shadow of a man he is, fades and he is left as something much more supernatural. A formless entity of smoke and lingering consciousness.

A feat beyond science and something certainly not natural.

It never lasts, but it was frightening the first time around when Reaper felt his body literally melting around him, skin, flesh and bone turning to something wispy and airy. It felt like fire the first time, a painful transition from something whole to something not.

It still feels of heat, though so often Reaper is cold despite how annoying this process is, it’s nice to feel warmth sometimes.

And he doesn’t die, anyways.

He thinks nothing of how this sight might affect Jack, they have not discussed the ins and outs of what his body can do now and apparently that was a mistake.

Or maybe not, a mistake after all. For it allows Reaper to see something valuable.

Without eyes, somehow Reaper is still watching the absolutely arousing and bloodthirsty display in front of him. At first, Jack had been silent at the display of watching his body shift into such a stage, that one could have written up to shock.

But oh, no, it was the quiet before the storm. The kind of storm that kills everything in its path, leaves the lands and what remains of the buildings tainted with the aftermath of desperation and death.  Bullets and rockets hits their marks splashing blood all around and even severing limbs and splattering organs. Leaving the squad of Talon goons that had faced them down an outright scene of carnage.

Reaper settles back into a mostly human form by the time Jack is done, looking probably as broken and tired as he was back when he was realigning his spine.

There’s still smoke pouring off him, more than usual but it’s much more controlled.

“You know I don’t die.” Reaper reminds.

“You did die once. It could happen again.”

“Unlikely, but if you want to go on rampage again for me, I wouldn’t mind.”

Reaper doesn’t need to see Jack’s face behind the visor to know he rolled his eyes. He remembers the possessiveness he felt a few days ago and now how it roars back to life. Alive, and stubborn to go back under the surface as quickly as before.

It wants to stay, he wants Jack to stay.

That’s a feeling that’s not new, the desire, the urge to keep Jack all to himself with too many hands and voices trying to snatch him away. What hands and voices? Overwatch? Talon?

The not knowing is really starting to get annoying but for now, Reaper is pleased.

Jack will fight for him, it’s nice for someone to fight for you. He likes this better than hopeful assurances and saccharine promises. Another hint of before, perhaps?

Reaper feels in Jack’s younger days, he used his mouth a lot. Not in a particularly lewd manner, though that is an appealing image in and of itself, but his words were so beautiful. He was so believable and charming, that anyone would have fallen under his spell and done whatever he wanted them to.

Much like siren seduces a victim into believing they would give their ensnared their greatest pleasure, when in the end, the only thing they would have is death.

Maybe Jack led him to his death, the first time around but now he doesn’t die. So Reaper sees no reason not to stay as his side.


End file.
